bRAZIL PROJECT – Press

Two years on the road presenting the plays of the repertoire, making seminars, exchanging informations, lectures, experiences and readings along the public form the raw material that built the new spectacle of companhia brasileira de teatro. PROJETO bRASIL (bRAZIL PROJECT), sponsored by Petrobras, had a national debut in Rio in October 2015, in a one-month season in Mezanino of Espaço SESC. Directed by Marcio Abreu, has in the cast the actors Giovana Soar, Nadja Naira and Rodrigo Bolzan and the musician Felipe Storino.

It is from this mosaic that the spectacle was built, first module of a work that continues. It is therefore the result of an intense research programming in the five regions of the country, which generated a set of performances. The collective creation that is PROJETO bRASIL (bRAZIL PROJECT) reflects the gathered material by the company members in the most varied circumstances, since classical presentations until seminars and experiences through the streets of Brazilian cities. The result is intertwined in the sequences that present from speeches of Uruguay ex-president José Mujica and the French minister Christiane Taubira to performances that include the audience participation.

They are independent scenes, in diverse shapes, that enhance sometimes the talk, sometimes the music, the body, the light – as defined by Marcio Abreu, “speeches”. “But they are not univocal speeches, nor equal in form”, says the director. “It is a very heterogeneous conjunct that includes the word, performance, music, theater. It is more sensorial than narrative; convokes, implies, provokes”. And these artists that let themselves be affected by the encounters with other Brazilian artists and the theatrical audience, by spontaneous experience, by the many materials, thoughts and actions produced in this journey bring to stage this first unfolding of the experience. It is not about, reiterates Abreu, a documental portrait, but yes the artistic reverberation of experience.

Taking the risks of creating a spectacle from the look of a country in a moment like the one today, companhia brasileira de teatro dedicated itself to the task with technique rigor, the appreciation for the research and the concern that are peculiar to it. The routes crossed, the situations lived, the stories and bibliographies read, the path was gradually being built. “Since the beginning we didn’t want to talk explicitly about the country”, tells the director Marcio Abreu.

“With the course of the work, this has been concretized: to talk without expressly talking, to deal with other things to deal with Brazil. This other work dimension is also a reflex of the impossibility to talk about the country, in a moment where things are still happening, in a large speed”. The impossibility to handle everything through the word also reflected into the shape of the spectacle, with an approximation in the path of other ways of expression like performance.

PROJETO bRASIL (bRAZIL PROJECT) was born of the group insertion in the public selection of Manutenção de Companhia de Teatro da Petrobras, that grants sponsorship for three years for research, montage and circulation. “In the first year, we made a circulation with the five plays of our repertoire through the five regions of Brazil”. In this period, they dedicatd themselves to the exchange of information with artists and unknowns, audience and passersby.

With this new montage, companhia brasileira de teatro outlines new paths of recreation of its dramaturgy that is already very particular, from rehearsal to montage, firming itself in a new language challenge. From this work, the company intends to bring new unfoldings to the contents of PROJETO bRASIL (bRAZIL PROJECT), with the possibility of parts of the work gaining autonomy, can be used as starting point for other actions and unfolding themselves into debates and encounters, per example.

THE MONTAGE

The black over black is on stage, and on a round overfloor it is installed a forest of microphones – some are used, some aren’t -, as if they were ready for a speech. And the speech happens, indeed, but not in the most conventional way. It is in this scenery that the independent scenes that compose PROJETO bRASIL (bRAZIL PROJECT) are made. There are moments of talks properly said, inspired in real speeches, but there are also own texts and scenes that seek for other possibilities of speech. Themes like politics, equality, exacerbated consumerism, market economy, ethics, the disposable character of everything in our society, the eagerness to understand and to communicate, are treated. Other questions refer to the work group, as the role of the actor, the theater and the art. The costumes, also in black, refer to the “end of the party”, defines Marcio.

Release by Luciana Medeiros with the collaboration of Fabiano Camargo.